First Ascent Accomplished!!!
I talked Dayle Turner into doing the pyramid ridge, going down from Mariners Ridge side.
So met at Pukoo Street again, and then Dayle changed his mind, says go up and cross over and come down Hahaione and then the switchbacks. I have not done the switchbacks for 15 years and readily agreed.
Turned out to be excellent decision.
Going up was uneventful, bottom half was wide open from last time. Then got into terra incognita, and it's pretty much more of the same. I would have spent more time clearing it wider, but it's passable.
Finally emerged from the ironwoods, and it's low growth, even some natives. The ridge actually broadens, and so it felt perfectly safe.
Turns out there is a false summit. Dayle got there first and claimed that the rest is "okay".
Then he was awfully quiet for 10-15 minutes.
When I got up the false summit, I saw why. For there is a narrow dike connecting the false and true (pyramid) summits, and he was climbing up an impossible, exposed rock right then.
I contemplated chickening out by slabbing to the left, but Dayle strongly recommended against it, and says: "it's not bad, just the top may need a rope."
I crossed over the dike gingerly, and commenced the final climb, which are not bad.
Then the final crux, a rockface about 10 feet high. I said, "why not go straight?", and soon realized that it's overhanging rock without footholds. So reluctantly went right like Dayle recommends, into an exposed position. There is a weakness, like a chute, in the rockface to the right, which looks okay. But then as I got nearer, the footholds are angled, and space for movement is extremely limited.
I therefore had to hand my loppers and my pack to Dayle, with instructions that he gets both if I fall off.
He did not get either of my treasured possessions, as I did manage to contort enough to climb up. That is the pyramid summit that I've been to 5-6 times before.
Dayle questioned why I thought that the top section is doable, looking from the pyramid summit. I looked, and it looks pretty awful. There is this rockface to downclimb, steep crumbly slope below leading to this awful dike, and then a narrow slope going down steeply. No sane person would commence going down from the pyramid peak.
Which is why it was good that we came up, for had we tried going down, we might have chickened!
It was much later that I realized why I thought the top section was doable, for at the next ridge there is view of the profile of the whole ridge, including the true and false summits and the dike saddle in between, that tends to indicate that the whole thing is not too bad after all.
Had some lunch snacks, and then departed on the back side. I of course pointed out where my small loppers fell out last time, and it fell some 200 feet downwards into thick vegetation below, never to be found.
Next we crossed over to Hahaione, descended Hahaione, past the jeep road that the Club used 10 days ago, and got to the switchback junction on the left. It's been some 15 years since I did the switchback, and my memory was that it was wet and muddy near the top.
Not today, it seems to receive maintenance, and is regularly used. It emerged at the end of Hahaione Street. At first, we were going to find a connector to the Pukoo trailhead, but we scratched that idea by noontime. It's actually only 0.1 miles or less to connect, and I'm sure I can find it one of these days.
The end of Hahaione St. is only 2-3 minutes walk away from our cars on Pukoo.
All in all, a fantastic hike, a first ascent, and a beautiful, awesome ridge. It can easily be turned into a Club loop hike, once the connector is located.
Author: Wing Ng <wing@lava.net>
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